Abstract
No animal performs only one behavior, so nervous systems must have ways to switch between different behaviors. In this issue of Journal of Comparative Physiology A, several papers discuss how nervous systems achieve this ordered switching between behaviors, from short-term motor control problems, to medium-term decision making based on past experience, to long-term modulation and selection of overall behavioral strategies, such as dominance versus subordinance.
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Acknowledgements
I thank Philip K. Stoddard (Department of Biological Sciences, Florida International University), the junior programme officer for the 2003 Animal Behavior Society meeting, for his guidance in organizing the original symposium.
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The papers discussed here were originally given at the symposium “Mechanisms of behavioral switching,” held at the annual Animal Behavior Society meeting in Boise, Idaho in July 2003.
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Faulkes, Z. Mechanisms of behavioral switching. J Comp Physiol A 191, 197–199 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-004-0560-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00359-004-0560-1